Today I took my next door neighbor/friend/budding herpetologist Alex out to Red Wolf Sanctuary with me. He just finished a week of zoo camp, but was still ready to go see some more animals and I was happy to oblige. I was glad I brought along some extra help - it would have been very tricky to feed three fawns on my own. Wallace the boy fawn is a little piggie and can be a little bit of a bully since he is so much bigger than the girls. Dixie the littlest girl will only drink out of one specific bottle, and Joey has a short attention span and tends to get distracted by the other fawns' bottles even though she has her own. Needless to say, Alex was a big help with managing these hooligans. The good news is that they are starting to eat solids, including grass and grains. Hopefully we will be able to start weaning them off of their bottles...they went through a grand total of eight bottles this morning, and that was just breakfast!
Dixie
Dixie (front) and Wallace (back)
After feeding the pigs-disguised-as-deer, we said hello to the wolf pups. They are just as friendly as last time, but bigger. Kiowa was having a grand old time trying to pull my hair out of its bun, and nearly succeeded in pulling my scalp out along with it. Their puppy fur is nearly all gone, and being replaced by the denser, more wiry adult fur. The other thing that has really changed is their eye color. Sioux's eyes have changed to a soft honey color, which suits her gentle personality quite nicely. Crioux's are fading from the green-blue to the more classic wolf-yellow color. Kiowa is the only one who has managed to hang on to the striking green color, which contrasts sharply with her black pelt.
After we hung out with the wolf pups, we went to visit with Rosie. She surprised me by being extra friendly today, even allowing Alex to pet her a bit. She was also extra ornery...she tried stealing my entire camera no less than seven times. When that didn't work out, she tried fishing my phone out of my pocket, and almost got away with it too. She must be Swiper the fox's long-lost sister or something.
Next was a visit to the raptors. We fed them today - mice to the owls and hawks and chicken to the turkey buzzards. The hawk was quite hungry today, pouncing on every mouse we threw in and slurping them right up. I even managed to take some pictures today:
Great Horned Owl
Red Tailed Hawk
We visited the bears on our way back to lunch, and they were chowing down as bears are wont to do.
Tecumseh the male Black Bear
After lunch, Alex and I went frog huntin'. This was strictly catch-and-release hunting, but hunting nonetheless. We caught numerous small frogs along the creek and got our boots stuck in deep mud for our troubles. Alex managed to catch four good-sized frogs who had taken up residence in one of the horses' old water troughs. My catch of the day was a frog who I dubbed Freddie (or he could be a toad- I actually think he's a toad, but don't know my amphibians well enough to say for certain). Observe my fine specimen of a frog/toad (as held by Alex):
Freddie the fine frog (or maybe a toad - my herpetology is not up to par)
Thus ends another Saturday at Red Wolf. Next weekend my Saturday will be spent at the Cincinnati Zoo shadowing a vet, which promises to be exciting but also lacking in wolf puppies. The following weeks I am with family in North Carolina, but I should be able to get back to Red Wolf at least one more time before the summer is out (I hope!).
NOTE: I finished writing this on June 22, but my photo processor was being silly and wouldn't let me get my photos until today.
I've been really lucky the past few weeks with cooler Saturdays, but since today is the second day of summer I guess the weather decided it wanted to act like summer. What I am trying to say is that today was very hot. As in, we arrived at Red Wolf at 9:00 AM and it was already 75º F outside. Due to this weather condition, we decided to work on the still-in-progress puma enclosure first before things got too hot. This time I was not sitting on top of the whole enclosure, at least. Instead, I was balanced on top of some somewhat wobbly ladders armed with hog rings and a giant screwdriver. The entire morning was spent finishing up the front of the enclosure. We completed nearly everything - all that is left to do is the big front gate, which needs to be fitted a little bit better because it is not lined up quite correctly. Fixing the gate requires another pole to be put across the bottom, which will take a good amount of time and effort since the pole needs to be cut and then fixed across the bottom. So when it came to be noon, we decided to call lunch and retreat from the sun. I did manage to remember sunscreen this time around (after my dermatologist made fun of my awkward tan line from last weekend).
After lunch my friend and I did a quick bear-run in which we scooped poo and fed bears. It didn't take too long, which is good since it was quite hot and there is nothing quite as (un)enjoyable as hot bear poo. After the bears, my mother and brother actually came to see the place where I have disappeared to every Saturday all summer. Since my brother is especially fond of raptors, we saved feeding the raptors until they got there. So my friend and I took them on a tour of Red Wolf. We stopped by and said hello to Yuma the puma (and my mother talked to Yuma as if she was just a slightly large house cat. Yuma, of course, remained unimpressed). Next we looked in on the silver-phase red fox (whose name is escaping me right now) and on Joker, the white-phase red fox. As a special surprise, we even saw a few of the wolves, which I was not expecting due to the heat.
Gray Wolf
Next stop was the raptors. The raptor center is completely full right now, occupied by: two great horned owls, one barred owl (Uno), one red-shouldered hawk, two red-tailed hawks, two buzzards, and the three baby screech owls (who were moved out into the center earlier this week). By this time, the temperature was reaching nearly 100º in the sun, so the birds were not terribly active or hungry, but they were still fun to feed and watch for a while. I even remembered to take my camera with me this time!
Red-tailed hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Great Horned Owl, missing right wing
Great Horned Owl
Great Horned Owl
Great Horned Owl
Great Horned Owl, "Unimpressed" Face
Uno the Barred Owl
Uno the Barred Owl
Not-so-dignified Great Horned Owl
Of course, what tour of Red Wolf is complete without a visit to Rosie? My brother and mother finally got to meet the diva fox who has been the subject of many conversations and photo sessions. She was very friendly, and much calmer than usual (which was probably due to that lovely heat). Then we went down to see the bears. My mom and bro brought a brand new wheelbarrow for the bear bunker, one that doesn't have a giant crack and leak bear poo everywhere! It is very exciting. It was so hot that the bears were literally lying on the floor and raking food with their paws into their mouths.
Tuck was a little more lively:
After the tour, it was time for me to head out because I had plans to go to a Roller Derby match. I had never been to one before, and the entirety of my knowledge came from a quick glance at the Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roller_derby). This was a big grudge match between the Cincinnati Roller Girls and the Northern Kentucky Black-n-Bluegrass Girls. Apparently there is a lot of rivalry because there used to only be a Cincinnati team until the NKY team formed, at which point some of the Cincinnati team girls went over to the KY team. I only know this because the girl who tames my hair whenever it needs a cut is on the Kentucky team. Anyways, it was pretty fun to watch, especially if/when there were body check and wipeouts involved.
Since I didn't post yesterday, I bet you might have thought that I slacked off again this week. It is a reasonable conclusion, considering my past track record. However, this is not the case. You see, I did not even get home from Red Wolf until 10 P.M yesterday evening. I decided to stay late to help Paul with a big tour. But I'll get into details about all that later. Many things occurred before this late-evening tour, and I want to cover them first.
The morning was not the typical bears-first morning. When I arrived, Paul was in the office with two new volunteers. Upon walking into the office, Paul says "Look, new meat!". I'm sure that made them feel good. Anyways, once the two other regular volunteers arrived, we set upon the first task of the morning, which was releasing that red-shouldered hawk back into the wild. I took a video of it and spent two hours uploading it onto YouTube, so I am going to take this opportunity to shamelessly insert it here:
You may have noticed that at the very end of the video, one of the newbies said that the release was anti-climactic. I disagree. I thought it was incredible to witness such a beautiful bird returned to the wild, where it belongs. Also, did you hear the bird calling in the beginning of the film? Isn't it beautiful? It makes me think of mountains and big sky country. The hawk did not go too far away at first; it just landed in a nearby tree. Its presence greatly upset the mockingbirds, as seen in the photo below.
After releasing the hawk and disturbing the mockingbirds, we took care of the bears. Imagine, if you will, that it is 93º F outside with 50% humidity. If you live in the Cincinnati tri-state area, this will not take a whole bunch of imagination. Now, imagine that you are inside big cement cells with no real air movement. Next, add in some shoveling of stinky bear poo and hauling of cleaning supplies and you get yesterday morning. It was not so much fun. Also, the bears are shedding like crazy and gunking up their water tubs so that we have to drain and refill all of them, which takes FOREVER. Also, we had two volunteers who had never done bears before. Long story short, yesterday morning was a very slow, hot process.
Eventually we did escape the bear oven in time for some lunch. I broke down and stored my lunch and water in Paul's office refrigerator, which I haven't done before because sometimes things like dead mice and rats get put in there before (animal) feeding time. You'd think that someone who shovels bear poo and processes meat could care less, but it still kind of grosses me out. However, it was so hot that I had fears of even my carrots melting, so into the questionable frige my lunch went. At lunch time, my cold water and lunch was divine, and I regretted absolutely nothing.
Of course, after lunch was Rosie time. Rosie was literally bouncing off the walls despite the heat. I think the new volunteers got her all riled up. But she did pause to be photogenic a few times.
After Rosie, we had to process an elk. Paul picked up this elk from an elk farm in Indiana. Apparently it had gotten its antlers stuck in the fence, and in the process of breaking free he tore off not only his antler, but part of his skull as well. The animal was still alive and left to his own devices (with an exposed brain??!) for two weeks before finally being put out of its misery and then donated to Paul. I won't go into details, since it was pretty much the same process as the cow. I did get to use the bone saw again, though...
The next task after the elk was vaccinating Paul's horses. I don't know if I've ever described how crazy his horses are, but to put it shortly, they are definitely not riding horses. Paul often describes them as his big dogs. Well, vaccinating these "big dogs" required a bucket of grains and a bucket of chopped up apples and being surrounded by four horses who were torn between eating the food from your hands or spooking from the vaccinations. Not my favorite of situations, but we all came out of it okay. No harm, no foul, right?
The next chore was easy: cleaning and refilling the raptors' water bowls. Paul asked me to take some photos for him, so I have lots of bird photos for your enjoyment.
Red Tailed Hawk
Great Horned Owl
Barred Owl
Following birds, we went back to the barn. One of the newbies had to leave, but we took the other on a tour of the property. One of the senior volunteers (I won't name names...) overheated the 4x4 and caused it to spew smoke and anti-freeze, which we quickly diluted with water to keep any animals from ingesting it.
After the tour, everybody headed home except for me. I stuck around to help Paul water the wolves and later give a tour. The tour started at 7 PM and had a total of 7 people from 3 different groups in it. I was in charge of driving a cart with two people in it. The tour lasted two hours, which is incredible because most sanctuary tours are short and not incredibly informative. Paul takes the time to talke about the animals in a way that relates specifically to the group he is showing around. For example, there were three children in the group yesterday, and he talked to them as much as he talked to the adults. It was really neat to see him talk about the animals he knows and cares so much about.
By the time the tours was finished, it was 9:15 and time for me to go home. I was too tired to write when I got home, so sorry for the late update. I go out again tomorrow, but it should be a much shorter day. So hopefully I will write again tomorrow!
